Barbecue is a very popular activity worldwide. Family and friends gather together at a barbecue not only to enjoy the fun of cooking but also to strengthen interpersonal bonds.
Conventionally, barbecuing involves putting hot charcoal in a charcoal pan, placing a barbecue rack above the charcoal, and laying food on the rack. Thus, the food is spaced from the charcoal and gradually cooked by the heat thereof. During the grilling process, it is common practice to turn the food with tongs so that the food is heated evenly. Alternatively, the food to be cooked is held by a spit provided above hot charcoal and is turned, during the roasting process, by rotating the spit. To prevent the food from charring or being overcooked, it is necessary to turn the food on a regular basis, which is very inconvenient.
As a solution to the aforesaid problem, electric barbecue apparatuses were developed and are now commercially available. Basically, an electric barbecue apparatus uses a motor to rotate a spit, thus allowing the food secured on the spit to rotate along with the spit and be exposed uniformly to the heat of charcoal. By doing so, the food is heated evenly and kept from burning. As the user need not use tongs or other tools to turn the food being cooked, electric barbecue apparatuses are effective in saving time and energy, thus making barbecue more convenient. However, if the user has other things to tend to during the roasting process and must leave the electric barbecue apparatus, the food being roasted is very likely to be forgotten and eventually become scorched or overcooked, which is highly undesirable.
To prevent such undesirable situations, an experienced user would use a timer with an alerting function, predetermine the required roasting time according to the type and thickness of food, set the roasting time with the timer, and place the timer around the electric barbecue apparatus. When the roasting time is up, the timer issues a sound alert to notify the user. Nonetheless, if the user is away from the electric barbecue apparatus at this moment, it will be impossible for the user to hear the sound alert. As a result, the best time at which to remove the food from the electric barbecue apparatus is missed, and the food may end up burned or overcooked.
Therefore, the issue to be addressed by the present invention is to solve the various problems described above and design a notification system for timed power supply whereby a user will be notified in a remote manner that a preset time is about to be up, thus allowing the user to remove food from an electric barbecue apparatus timely.